FRACTIONS IN PHOTOGRAPHY 1
September 29, 2023
Most people tend to find fractions a little intimidating. But sometimes using a familiar concept (especially from a field you're interested in) to illustrate this area of math can make the medicine go down a bit easier, so to speak. This time around, let's explore the concept of fractions as found in photography.
With the advent of digital photography, some believe that the camera can basically do all the work for you. And yes, most newer cameras have an Automatic mode that can give you a pretty decent capture in many cases. But variables like lighting & exposure can become more complicated fairly quickly, and if you're interested in progressing as a photographer, at some point you'll have to learn to use some of the manual settings on your camera. And one area of photography that almost always requires valuable human insight is composition.
THE RULE OF THIRDS - The proper framing of your shots can make or break your photos. We've all taken pictures of relatives where it looks like the background tree limbs are coming out of their ears or hair. And most of us have ruined a perfectly good beachscape shot by having too much of the sand in the image or too much of the sky in it. But not to fear! There's help for those of us who tend to be compositionally challenged when it comes to making images. Back when I took an introductory photography class in school, the professor introduced us to the Rule of Thirds, which is basically a guide for composing your photos. As you can see in the graphic below, the image plane is divided up into three sections horizontally and vertically. And this is where our first set of fractions comes into play. As the name implies, the image is divided into thirds or three parts. (I'm playing the part of Mr. Obvious here, but I'll continue anyway…) Adding together all three of the parts or sections gives you the whole:
⅓ + ⅓ + ⅓ = 1
You might be asking yourself, so what am I supposed to do with this chopped-up grid? How in the world will this help anyone take better photos? I'm so glad you asked! Experts maintain that using this grid as a composition guide can help improve how you frame your photos. Specifically, they recommend lining up key elements of your image along the vertical or horizontal grid lines or at the intersection of the grid lines. And the cool thing is, many digital cameras & smartphones give you the option of turning on these Rule of Thirds gridlines on your screen to assist you in taking better shots. Once you're looking at your image, you can move your camera around, or take a few steps forward or back, or use a slight zoom to line up your subjects with the grid, and simply snap away!
One last note on this: The Rule of Thirds guidelines are exactly that. Just guidelines. They're perfect for certain landscapes and sometimes even for casual portraits. But great photographers know how to bend these guidelines and still come up with an excellent composition. And if your focus is model or fashion photography, you'll find that the Rule of Thirds hardly ever applies. The dynamic interaction between a model & photographer can even make a centered and symmetrical image resonate with emotion and energy. So if you're just starting out and you feel the need to use the Rule of Thirds grids, that's more than okay. And as you keep practicing and working to refine your craft, creating a great composition will become second nature and almost instinctive.